Kentucky leaned on defense during early offensive struggles against Missouri

Kentucky ended the regular season on Saturday with a 91-83 win on the road against the #15 Missouri Tigers. At first, it wasn’t going as planned. Missouri’s defensive pressure seemed to have Kentucky really out of rhythm on offense, where the Tigers went up 11-4 with just under 12 minutes left in the first half. Then, the Wildcats were able to stay with the Tigers, as they took advantage of a Missouri scoring drought that lasted over two minutes, where an 11-0 run helped give the offense the spark it needed.

During that time when the offense was struggling, it was the defense that kept the Wildcats from being out of the game early. The 11-0 run, thanks to a scoring drought from Missouri, was the turning point that gave Kentucky’s offense a boost that ultimately helped them for much of the game. Mark Pope says Kentucky used their defense early to ‘stay afloat’ with the struggles their offense was having.

“They had us really uncomfortable on the offensive end to start the game. I was really proud of our guys because we talked about in the timeouts like, ‘Hey, it’s ok because our defense is going to keep us afloat.’ For us in that run to just be able to trust our defense, trust that we know we don’t feel great on the other side of the ball, but we will eventually get there, for these guys to step up and make tough, physical plays on the defensive end and kind of keep us alive was incredibly encouraging.”

– Pope on the early stretch of the game.

That decision ultimately proved to be right, as Kentucky’s offense really got hot after that early stretch, shooting 11-20 from three on the night. led by Koby Brea who went 3-5 from deep. On the defensive end, Kentucky had 20 points off of 10 Missouri turnovers, including 7 steals. Along with his team-high 22 points, Otega Oweh had 3 steals, coming up big on the defensive end. Another highlight from the stat sheet was Andrew Carr’s double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds. They were catalysts in Kentucky’s efforts.

Kentucky using their defense early to lean on, given their tremendous improvements there over the last couple of weeks certainly bodes well for the postseason. It’s good to know when the offense isn’t clicking, the Wildcats can lean on the other side of the ball.